November « 2009 « Space Politics

Caution about US-China space cooperation

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 30 at 7:34 am ET

When President Obama visited China earlier this month, the US and China issued a joint statement that included a passage about space cooperation, including “starting a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration”. Cooperation would be a good thing, right? Not necessarily, according to some.

In an Aviation Week op-ed last week, Eric Sterner […]

“Hypocrisy” regarding stimulus bill and NASA

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 30 at 7:21 am ET

Last month most of the Texas Congressional delegation sent a letter to President Obama asking that $3 billion in stimulus funding be redirected to NASA. Beyond the question of whether the president has the authority to do so (as the money was specifically appropriated by Congress), there was another issue: a number of the congressmen […]

Double jeopardy for commercial space next Wednesday?

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 24 at 7:21 am ET

The House Science and Technology Committee has released the witness lineup for its hearing next Wednesday, December 2, on “Ensuring the Safety of Human Space Flight”:

Mr. Bretton Alexander, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation Dr. Joseph Fragola, Vice President, Valador Inc. Mr. Jeff Hanley, Program Manager, Constellation Program, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA Mr. John Marshall, […]

Dysfunctional advocacy

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 23 at 12:58 pm ET

In today’s issue of The Space Review I summarize some of the recent lobbying efforts, and the problems associated with them, that I’ve discussed here in the last week or so, including the dueling March Storms, the SaveNASA effort, and Save Space’s letter-writing campaign. A couple of items in the article that I had not […]

An impatient space community

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 23 at 6:30 am ET

A few other notes from Alan Ladwig’s talk Friday at the University of Nebraska space law conference in Washington:

Ladwig acknowledged the uncertainty that many have felt over the last year about the future policy direction of the new administration. “The space community has been a little on edge during the past 11 months, waiting […]

Is the ISS Nobel-worthy?

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 21 at 4:17 pm ET

That was the suggestion floated by NASA’s Alan Ladwig during a speech Friday morning at the 2nd Annual Space and Telecom Law Conference in Washington, organized by Space and Telecom Law Program of the University of Nebraska’s College of Law. Ladwig, who just transitioned from his former role as senior advisor to the administrator to […]

SEA, ProSpace set plans for lobbying blitzes

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 19 at 6:49 am ET

If your idea of space advocacy can’t be contained to 140-character tweets, you’re in luck: a couple of organizations have set plans for grassroots lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill early next year. The Space Exploration Alliance has announced plans for its 2010 Legislative Blitz, scheduled for February 21-23. (Some of the language on the web […]

Watch out, @whitehouse: tweeps want to #saveNASA

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 19 at 6:40 am ET

It seems some NASA supporters took the news about a potential across-the-board budget cut in FY2011 (which may or may not happen, and may or may not include NASA) pretty hard: on the microblogging service Twitter, the news generated a flurry of tweets in the last day or so, all tagged with the search term […]

Save Space claims it’s met its goal

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 18 at 1:15 pm ET

In late September Save Space kicked off its efforts to get half a million letters in support of the space program delivered to the White House by the end of October. By late October, though, that goal looked doubtful: the metrics they had provided (in terms of web traffic and Facebook fans) appeared to fall […]

Taking another small step on a journey of a thousand miles

By Jeff Foust on 2009 November 18 at 7:06 am ET

After Tuesday’s meeting between Presidents Obama and Hu, the two countries issued a joint statement covering a wide range of issues, including one paragraph about space issues:

The United States and China look forward to expanding discussions on space science cooperation and starting a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration, based on […]

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